(click "Don" Alfonso's surname above to set appropriate "flavor")
NATIONAL POST
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Canadian Press
CREDIT: Dave Sidaway, The Montreal Gazette
Alfonso Gagliano, onetime public works minister
and former ambassador to Denmark.
Former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano said Monday that Prime Minister Paul Martin has taken Canada and the federal Liberal party down the road to ruin. "He's going to destroy the party and break up the country,'' Gagliano said during an interview with Radio-Canada, the French-language network of the CBC.
He said Quebec sovereignty is inevitable after the revelations at Justice John Gomery's inquiry into the sponsorship program once headed by Gagliano _ and if the Conservatives replace the minority Liberal government.
"It's a question of time,'' said Gagliano, who was prime minister Jean Chretien's Quebec lieutenant.
"Of course, if (Quebec Liberal Premier Jean) Charest makes a miracle and forms a second government, it could possibly be put off. But I think that at this stage, the separation of Quebec from Canada is not stoppable. It's a question of time. It's going to happen.''
The Gomery inquiry was ordered by Martin last year after a report by federal auditor general Sheila Fraser found irregularities in the sponsorship program set up under Chretien to promote national unity.
The inquiry has heard that sponsorship money was funnelled to Liberal-friendly ad firms in Quebec in exchange for contributions to the bankrupt Quebec wing of the party.
Gagliano, who was recalled as ambassador to Denmark by Martin, made no apologies for the revelations at the inquiry but denied allegations by former Quebec Liberal organizer Benoit Corbeil that volunteers were paid by the Groupaction Marketing firm.
Gagliano said it was his understanding that the party paid the volunteers.
He also wondered why the sponsorship inquiry did not investigate how Martin financed his own run for the Liberal leadership.
"Certain communications firms that were close to Mr. Martin, Earnscliffe to be exact, took in ... millions of dollars,'' Gagliano said.
He said there was nothing scandalous in the sponsorship program to his knowledge.
© Canadian Press 2005